God is Evil

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That is a good question Claire. I think most people do have an innate understanding of good and evil which is really illogical if you think about it in terms of how our world operates. There really is no good or evil in our world, it's mostly chaotic indifference when it comes to matter. So, if people have an innate "remembering" or knowledge of something more perfect that ought to be, where does that come from? We would be better off if we didn't bother thinking and dwelling upon these things which are so part of being human. Why did evolution offer this to us? Wouldn't we be better off if (supposing that all matter came from matter and there is nothing beyond this) assuming the role of a logical animal without all of the emotional longing for God?

You mean it isn't?

This is not exactly true. The Lucifer story is found in, I believe, Isaiah, and had precursors in Canaanite mythology. The unification of the Lucifer story and Satan was first done in late pre-Christian Jewish writings (Book of Enoch, of course).

The notion of evil gods (satan and such) go way back before Judaism. Even hunter/gatherer societies who have never heard of Christianity or Judaism have beliefs in duality. I don't know of any hunter/gatherer societies that don't believe in duality. That is not to say that it must be right. But it does show that it's not a mere conconction by Christianity.

Humanity has a long and consistent history of theoretical insanity.

The thought experiment described in that video looks like a load of nonsense to me. First of all, it assumes the moral argument for the existence of God as a basis, which I never found very convincing to begin with. Secondly, I don't see why fear of God and punishment should be the reason why people should have ethical and moral values as claimed by the video. If someone has rely on fear of punishment, either by society or by God, in order to care about the difference between right and wrong then that says a lot about the moral character of the person. Also, even if God didn't exist society would still need to have rules in order to be functional.

The video is satire.

Sorry, I didn't realise it was satire . I've always had a problem with interpreting things literally and although I've learned the difference to some extent, I still have lapses now and then . Then again, some of the arguments given by a few of those bible thumpers can be mistaken as satire, so I'm not surprised that I missed it .

Saying that god is evil is the same as saying Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are evil.

Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are characters created by people. I think that is a pretty well known fact. What is not known is how we got here and why we are here.

And God, of course, is also a character created by people. Instead of simply admitting that some things are yet unknown some people prefer to label this foggy unknown territory as God.

We have to have words to describe things to each other. Maybe someday we'll all be so intuitive that we won't have to use pesky words like god and evil, but for now, words are necessary to communicate ideas.

There are many ways other than words to communicate ideas. Static pictures, videos, mathematical formula, demonstrations, music, facial expressions, creations like sculpture, architecture, different foods and drinks, mere sounds like grunts, howls, laughter, sneezing, body temperature, belches, and probably many more. Words have their value but are limited in many ways.

When I was a child, I saw a painting of hell. It was a beautiful painting of a young woman pouring urns of water into a larger urn, which would never fill due to a leak on its side. I am not certain how I knew this was a depiction of hell, but I did and I knew the woman would be performing this task for all eternity. But who knows, maybe it was just a painting of a woman pouring water into a leaky urn.

well, the issue is how morality would be better justified according to some, I think one interpretation of Nietzsche regarding morality, if I'm not mistaken, is to point out that without God we have nihlism (without God life and everything would be meaningless), and the view that morality could only be justified through the belief of God, one interpretation of Nietzche's The Madman is believed to be a criticism towards the enlightment movement and atheism back then.

In any case, will it be easier to justify morality through God than without God?

*This could be seen as playing devil's advocate, but really, I don't seem to have any concrete position on this, actually, I don't seem to have any.

edited for clarity



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Last edited by alba on 10 Jul 2009, 11:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.